Wednesday, April 27, 2011

As I mentioned PREVIOUSLY issue 4 of INVENTORY MAGAZINE is out, available now, and should have started showing up at various retailers around the world.

My copy arrived a couple of days ago, and I was really excited to get my hands on it after all my own, and everyone else's, hard work.

Every issue seems to be a step up from the last, but I can honestly say that this feels like the strongest of the four. Absolutely no filler: great design, beautiful photography and an amazing list of contributors. The main event is a feature on WOOLRICH WOOLEN MILLS, and it's an amazing insight into the brand and both DAIKI and MARK.

A special mention also goes to my good friend NICHOLAS HAGGARD, who absolutely blew me away with his photos of the people and landscapes of New Mexico, shot on a trip there with the boys from YUKETEN.

For this issue I was fortunate enough to be given the chance to interview two of my very favourite people: BILL CALLAHAN (3), a life long idol, and JASON GREGORY (1), a good and talented friend.

Alongside the feature on Makr Carry Goods and the interview with Bill (mostly regarding his book LETTERS TO EMMA BOWLCUT) there are a couple of reviews, and a very small piece of fiction at the back. For this I was lucky enough to be able to persuade another good friend MARCELO GOMES to let me use a photo of his to run alongside the text. In fact that image (2) became the inspiration for the fiction piece in the first place, after several weeks of false starts and bad ideas, so it's a double thanks I owe to him.

I'd never heard of him. Someone's making a documentary about him and he listens to some of my music when he paints, so he wanted permission to have some of my music playing while he's painting in the film. He wanted to know how much it would cost, and I was in need of a cover. I usually have a good idea pretty early on in the process of making a record, but I was kind of struggling, and the deadline was getting near, so I was throwing out all my tentacles. I said, Well, you can have music if you give me a painting of a West Texas landscape. I wasn't really expecting to like it. I didn't know what would happen. It came, and I was blown away - I really like it. It always surprises me every time I look at it. I feel like it's moving like clouds, almost like it's changing every time I'm looking at it. I do feel that it's kind of ominous, but it's also pink and baby blue, so how ominous can that be?

Part of the agreement was don't send me the painting. I didn't know what it was going to look like, and if I hated it, it would be like, What am I going to do with this? So I just took a gamble. It's also like, I hate clutter. I'd rather not have something than have something, across the board. I've never been to Mules Ear Peak. It's about eight hours west. I've passed through there all the time on tour, but there's never any time to stop. I really like the landscape around here. I don't think a lot of people have seen it. That's just an assumption, I guess. People have an idea of what Texas is, there's so much space and things don't grow like California redwoods. Everything grows sideways, like live oak trees. Things grow tall because of competition, you know? They've got to get closer to the sun. But it's easier to grow sideways than it is to grow straight.